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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 897 796 8 



E43 

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NATIONAL POLITICS. 



SPEECH 



V 



OF 
/ 



HON. LEMUEL D. EVANS, OF TEXAS, 



DELIVERED 




IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 13, I85G. 



The House being in the Committee of the 
Whole on the state of the Union — 

Mr. EVANS said: 

Mr. Chairman: It is not my wish or design on 
the present occasion to attempt a discussion in 
extenso of any particular proposition now mooted 
before the National Legislature; but rather to en- 
ter my earnest, yet respectful protest against the 
agitation of those unnecessary and mischievous 
issues which the special pleaders of party have 
prepared with so much ingenuity, and which 
they are endeavoring with such an excess of per- 
verse zeal to force upon the attention of Congress 
and the country, while interests of the highest 
moment, and demanding immediate action, con- 
tinue to be neglected or ignored altogether. 

The time has been when this great theater of 
free debate witnessed a far different spectacle. 
History has preserved the days and noted the 
very hours when these walls were consecrated by 
the services of immortal genius dealing with 
mighty measures of universal, because of national 
concern. Eut no one can pretend that it is so 
now. Instead of profound argument, or impas- 
sioned eloquence on the great principles of our 
Government,iand the practical policy ofits admin- 
istration, you hear nothing save abstract disqui- 
sitions on the theory of public or private morals; 
or inquiries as to the comparative values of free 
and servile labor; or worse still, fierce assaults 
and unseemly recriminations bandied about be- 
tween opposing factions, as these stand defined 
on the nation's map, by the paltry and unpatri- 
otic marks of mere geographical boundaries, as if 
intelligence and virtue were indigenous to given 
localities. 

But if you turn from this unpleasant picture to 
seek relief in the wisdom of parties, what is left 
of all their boasted science and art, save the cun- 
ning of strategetics ? Instead of measures, or 
even men, you behold maneuvers — dexterity 
without strength, and vehemence without vigor 
— a scheme of policy that begins and ends with 
the philosophy of excitement, and whose sole 
instrument is endless agitation. 
It must not, however, be too hastily concluded, 



either that the patriotic spirit of the country has 
suffered a general decline and deterioration, or that 
the race of giant intellects has become utterly 
extinct. An inference so painfully humiliating 
does not necessarily follow from the facts. In- 
deed, it cannot be doubted — I will not allow my- 
self to doubt, that the hearts of the people glow 
vyith as warm and healthy a love for the institu- 
tions of their native land,, as ever; while the 
splendid discoveries in science, and the progress 
in literature and the arts, prove incontestably 
that neither the speculative nor practical faculties 
of American thinkers in the present generation 
have decayed in energy or diminished in effort. 

But if this be so, upon what rational principles 
shall we strive to account for the extraordinary 
intellectual barrenness of powerful thought and 
comprehensive policy which you perceive every- 
where in the halls of legislation, and other de- 
partments of the Government, as well as in all 
the evolutions of opposing factions ? Now, to 
my mind, the explanation seems as obvious as it 
is easy. The formal 'tactics, the vigorous drill 
and discipline of the professional politicians, or- 
ganized into a sort of unholy hierarchy in regu- 
lar subordination to despotic leaders, have, at the 
same time, cramped and fettered the free geniua 
of all our great statesmen, and disfranchised the 
sovereign citizens of their constitutional rights. 
Everything — talents, fame, honor, conscience — 
has become subservient to the interests of party, 
and must bow at the bidding ofits chosen chiefs. 
What space can be found for the spontaneous 
development of exalted intellect; what opportu- 
nity for the generous impulses of honest patriot- 
ism, in the crushing confinement of such a tyran- 
nical regime? Behold, also, the apex of absurd- 
ity. The self-assumed high priests and oracles 
of faction demand from all an unconditional 
surrender, an absolute submission to the author- 
ity of party, in the name of party, and for the 
sake of party. But what is party, in the gen- 
uine and noble acceptation of the term ? It can be 
nothing more than the incarnate symbol, the 
living, actual embodiment of great national ideas 
and positive practical ends, with a view to their 



.E<* 



realization in the operations of Government. In 
Other words, there can be no party without a 
policy. The inference is irresistible: as ideas 
and aims constitute the soul of parties, when the 
former have been either executed or abandoned, 
the latter are already dead beyond even the possi- 
bility of resurrection, and should be at once dis- 
solved. And such is the exact condition of all 
our present political organizations, as I will show 
more fully in the sequel. They are destitute of 
any specific differences, other than. factional attri- 
butes, to distinguish them in real classification 
from each other; and their very names are mere 
unmeaning echoes from the mighty voices of the 
past. 

A brief analysis of the most prominent facts 
in the history of national politics will explain 
how the natural result which I have just indica- 
ted has been accomplished; and may serve also as 
the guiding light for the inauguration of a future 
policy. In the first place, at the very foundation 
of our Government, as the main pillar and cor- 
ner-stone of the structure, we discover the great 
idea of political liberty. But the particular char- 
acter, and the primary nationality of the chiefs 
and fathers of the Revolution, and the specific 
notions necessarily implied in their minds by the 
term liberty, must never be forgotten by any who 
would correctly interpret the formulas of their lan- 
guage , as preserved in the undying records of those 
glorious historic days. The heroes and patriots 
of that age were Englishmen; all their education, 
ideas and institutions were English, and nothing 
more. Every resolution of theirs in Convention 
and Congress — every earnest petition which they 
laid at the foot of the throne — all their speeches, 
pamphlets, and newspapers — asserted or de- 
manded English liberty, and that only. It was 
the object of their combat, and the precious prize 
of their conquest. f 

Having achieved their independence, it re- 
mained for them to organize the supreme national 
powers into a system of civil and political unity, 
ibr the conservation and security of their newly 
acquired freedom ; and in the performance of this 
wonderful work — wonderful almost as the crea- 
tion of a world — every student of history knows 
how largely they borrowed from the model of the 
English constitution; for their ideal still went no 
farther than the. perfection of English liberty. 

Some theorists, it is true, vainly suppose, or, 
at least, talk as if they imagined, that the men of" 
the Revolution framed this Government, not for 
their own happiness and the hopes of their chil- 
dren, but to realize the airy dream of universal phi- 
lanthropy, or the no less idle and impossible 
abstraction of universal equality; and these soph- , 
ists have endeavored to base their absurd hypoth- 
esis on the great charter of our national freedom, 
by wresting a few isolated phrases from all har- 
mony of interpretation, both with the .subject- 
matter and the context. It must be evident, 
however, to all impartial persons, who are even 
competent to think on such topics, that the lib- 
erty and equality predicated in that sacred instru- 
ment must have related exclusively to the sover- 
eign citizens of the United States — to the people 
of the race that alone were parties to the compact, 
nd to no others. Those sages and philosophers 
did not meet in solemn deliberation to prepare a 
constitution for Africa or India; but in their own 



; express language, for " themselves and their pos- 
terity. " Consider the occasion; and can it be 
, assumed, without the tacit perpetration of a libel 
I against their wisdom, that minds at once so pro- 
foundly philosophical and eminently practical, 
j would so far depart from the immediate and 
proper business before them, as to diverge and 
travel off into the far fields of psychology or com- 
: parativc physiology, to affirm the natural equality 
. of all the Hottentots in the deserts of the burning 
! zone, of all the root-digging savages in the dells 
I of the Rocky Mountains, of ev^-ry barbarous 
! being that wears the human shape, with them- 
! selves, with Washington, Hamilton, and Frank- 
jlin? For whether the ethnological dogma be a 
I sober fact or a ridiculous fiction, that was neither 
| the time nor the place for its assertion. And, 
besides, the proposition itself is so supremely 
preposterous, that it may well be doubted whether 
any sane mind, fully comprehending the terms, 
ever yet truly believed it. The word equality is 
synonymous with exact resemblance, and cannever 
be applied without violent absurdity, to things in 
which the difference or contrast predominates 
over the likeness. As well might you state an 
algebraic equation between the numerals one and 
one thousand, as between the inferior colored 
races and those which stand at the climax in the 
ascending scale of civilization. 

Returning, however, to the condition of social 
and civil institutions at the origin of American 
political history, you see almost everywhere the 
local laws of the several States deeply marked and 
strongly tinctured with the colors of British aris- 
tocracy, with the insolent rights of primogeniture, 
the powerful tyranny of entails, and the arbi- 
trary mechanism of organized monopolies; while 
even public opinion, under the guidance of some 
illustrious leaders, evinced a perverse tendency of 
reaction towards ancient forms. But precisely 
when the danger to liberty was becoming most 
imminent, a beneficent Providence raised up and 
brought forward on the stage of our national 
drama, the greatest political philosopher that ever 
lived in any epoch or country — that truly wonder- 
ful genius, that matchless mind, so potent in the 
faculty of comprehensive generalization, so patient 
and thoroughly searching in analysis, and so dex- 
terous in dealing with the perplexities of details, 
that the emanations of his thought seemed almost 
the effects of inspiration, and his sentences 
sounded like oracles of superhuman wisdom. 
And if first of all, and incomparably above all, 
Washington stands exalted as the Father and 
temporal savior of the Republic, Jefferson is fairly 
entitled to the praise of being the genuine parent 
and chief apostle of the Democratic, party — that 
party which wa"s based on the idea of equal sov- 
ereignty distributed among all the citizens of the 
Union without distinction. He declared a war 
of extermination against everything that opposed 
this grand conception — against primogeniture, 
entails, monopolies, and all the impudent preten- 
sions of oligarchy, in whatsoever form the few 
might seek to impose subjection on the many. 
Fearing not to trust the intelligence of the people, 
he called the masses to his standard, and by the 
aid of their irresistible alliance routed the friends 
and admirers of English aristocracy — the advo- 
cates of gentle birth and classical education as the 
only doors to the dignities of place and power 



Such was the inauguration and primary victory |. 
of the Democratic idea. 

Rut, to achieve this splendid triumph, Thomas 
Jefferson had to contend with fearful odds, with 
all the learning, and prejudice, with the pen- ! 
sioned talents, the party drill, and cunning tactics I 
of his day. He had nothing but his grand army 
of peasantry to vanquish the hosts of cavaliers, '; 
the mailed knights of monopoly and privilege, the 
Sower and %1'iteof the self-assumed higher classes. | 
And this fact alone explains the immense popu- 
Iarity and extraordinary vigor of his Adminis- 
tration. The very humblest man of his party : 
felt the proud consciousness that his own arm; 
had assisted in the glorious combat, and that he 
himself shared a portion of the luster which 
beamed around the brow of his conquering chief-,! 
tain. A President, to command real power for] 
administrative functions, must be strong in public 
opinion, and in close, as it were, magnetic sym- 
pathy with the common sentiments and even ji 
passions of the people. He must feel, that the 
crust of the earth is solidgranite beneath his feet 
l» fore he can venture to take steps which may : 
shake the poles. But the sage of Democracy ! 
well knew the all-enduring firmness of the ground j 
on which he stood, and hence resulted the bold- ! 
ness of his measures and the energy of their exe- i J 
cution. And in this respect he has had no equal ! 
since, with the single exception of General Jack- j 
son, who indeed occupied precisely the same' 
position. For both these great men owed their 
measureless popularity to the harmony of their!, 
intuitions and ideas with the feelings and opin- 
ions of the people. Almost without advisers, ! | 
they were, so to speak, both their own Cabinets, 
ftl)d consequently without discord in deliberation j 
or imbecility in action; and the similar effect for j! 
each has been a universal and imperishable fame. 
If you travel into the remote woods of the far 
West, or wander among the sequestered valleys I 
of distant mountains, you may nndw*hoIe neigh- ,' 
borhoods that never so much as heard of some 'j 
Presidents; but roam where you will, every- jj 
where and anywhere, at the sources of the Mis- | 
Bissippi, and by the sands of the Mexican gulf, I 
with the hunters of the wide prairies and the' 
trappers of the northern Cordilleras, the names 
of Jefferson and Jackson are still uttered as' 
household words, and repeated forever as mag- 1 
ical forms of incantation by the lips of Democrats 
throughout the world. 

The struggle, however, between the antagon- 
istic parties and principles did not terminate with 
the brilliant triumph of Jefferson. But from that 
day until the present hour, the Democratic idea 
has steadily gained ground, so that now the 
sovereign equality of all citizens is recognized in | 
theory, at least, by all classes, and even by the : 
most opposite schools of statesmen. 

Nevertheless, the ingenuity of the professional j 
politicians is as great as their appetite for power j 
shows itself insatiable; and at a very early j 
period, when aristocracy had already suffered an 
irrevocable decline in opinion, they contrived a ! 
sinister scheme to restore its domination in an- 
other shape. And, indeed, one might almost! 
say, that if the very prince of all evil had him- j 
self inspired them, these political traitors against 
freedom could not possibly have imagined a more j 
effectual method for the consummation of their | 



object than the old caucus system of effecting 
nominations for the presidency, by the combi- 
nations and intrigues of the members of Con- 
gress. This plan for the disfranchisement of the 
people soon grew to be an intolerable grievance, 
and turned the Government into an arrogant 
oligarchy, which continued the usurpaticjn until 
General Jackson crushed all its machinery into 
atoms, beneath the weight of his immense and 
resistless popularity. 

But the despotism of the caucus being swept 
away and literally consumed in the fires of gen- 
eral indignation, the phoenix of conventions, that 
other bird of still more evil omen, quickly arose 
from its ashes, under the cunning and baleful 
tyranny of this new and irresponsible power: 
the spirit of oligarchy has become incarnate in a 
more detestable form, and has reduced all the 
political rights and influence of the people to the 
paltry alternative of a selection between two rival 
candidates, the nominees of the opposing con- 
ventions. 

It will be urged, I am well aware, that the high 
authority of General Jackson has approved by 
an explicit sanction this odious system of con- 
ventions. But it must be remembered, that he 
did so only under the safe limitation and positive 
proviso, " that the delegates should come fresh 
from the people." And I ask you, sir, if that 
absolute and necessary condition is fulfilled in the 
present practice of any political organization ? 
Do the delegates come into convention/?-^ from 
the people? — do they even come from the people 
at all ? Every intelligent man in the United States 
knows the fact to be far otherwise. We have all 
seen how. these things are managed. In what 
manner are the first delegates elected in the vil- 
lages of the rural districts ? Every county of every 
State in the whole Republic can bear witness that 
these pretended representatives of popular opin- 
ion, of the worth and wisdom of this great nation, 
are in fact chosen by a few professional politi- 
cians, office-holders, or expectants of office, with 
their little circle of satellites, the bullies of the 
bar-room, and other species of that large and 
politically influential genus vulgarly denominated 
loafers ! 

But if you turn from such disgraceful scenes 
for solace to the populous towns, the case is 
worse still; and worst of all in the great capitals 
of commerce; for there the clamorous confusion 
of the primary meetings baffles all the powers of 
description by either pen or pencil; and the paid 
prize-fighters of faction, the butcher boys, and 
braves of fancy, have it all their own way. 

" Delegates fresh from the people !" And who 
are the people? Surely not such specimens as 
these. No, sir. While the pettifogger and drilled 
politician stand brawling over the names of their 
favorites you will find the real people, the power 
and pride of their country, at home: the mechanic 
with his tools, the farmer behind his plow, tho 
merchant beside his ledger, the physician with 
his patients, the clergyman at his desk. For 
none of the truly sovereign classes employed in 
the production or distribution of material, intel- 
lectual or moral wealth, have either the time or 
the taste for the low intrigues and stormy agita- 
tion of such assemblies, which are therefore left 
to the supervision of the political loafers, withou 
contra,! or a shadow of responsibility. 



4 



I think it may be safely assumed that, out of 
the three or four millions of voters in the United 
States, not one man in the thousand has anything 
to do, even by indirection, with the choice of 
delegates to any convention. What a strange 
phenomenon is this in the practice of a free Gov- 
ernment! Will the historian of future ages, or 
the Democrat of distant generations, be able to 
credit the monstrous fact, that such a system of 
utter and unrelieved aristocracy was permitted to 
grow up and flourish in the bosom of an enlight- 
ened republic ? 

The annals of the world prove, beyond all con- 
troversy, thattherightof nomination monopolizes 
to itself all other power, and is in fact supreme. 
And it is clear almost as a mathematical axiom, 
and demonstrated by all experience, that no man 
can receive a presidential nomination except by 
intriguing with the very persons who are des- 
tined to be the members of his Cabinet, or the 
ministers to represent his government at foreign 
courts. Hence, in the nature of things, the ne- 
cessary result must be a nomination, not upon 
principle, or national policy, or even individual 
merit, but under the motive influence of self-in- 
terest, in a manner as corrupting to the nominee 
as to the electors. And thus, on the unhallowed 
altar of patronage and the spoils of office, public 
morality and political integrity are habitually 
sacrificed in every caucus and convention; for 
such is the inevitable consequence of that danger- 
ous and demoralizing system. 

A famous sceptical philosopher has maliciously 
defined Democracy to be " a government by dem- 
agogues." Eut if Hobbes had flourished at this 
day, he might, with a fine show of reason, have 
<-Jiaracterized the aristocracy of conventions as a 
government of political loafers. It is even more 
baneful than the old exploded plan of the despotic 
caucus. For the members of Congress, who by 
that means effected presidential nominations, 
must have felt some sense of responsibility to the 
people, as the tenure of their offices depended 
upon the popular will. It is not so with the del- 
egates. They owe allegiance to no power save 
party, and have neither hope nor fear but in the 
future smiles or frowns of the coming Adminis- 
tration. 

And what, sir, have been the practical conse- 
quences of this unnatural and insolent tyranny ? 
It has ostracised all our greatest statesmen, so 
that now the only certain passport to the highest 
position of honor and trust is the possession of a 
prudent mediocrity. Such is the universal testi- 
mony and indignant complaint of the whole coun- 
try. Eminent services, brillianteloquence, varied 
learning, far-sighted policy, a world-wide fame, 
are all so many insurmountable obstacles in the 
path of promotion which leads to the President's 
chair; for to be known to the people is to be 
ignored by the convention. As the only legiti- 
mate highways to exalted station have been thus 
effectually barred, politicians arc led by a moral - 
necessity to seek out the crooked and corrupt 
avenues of party intrigue and conspiracy. Re- 
fusing to accept the great practical issues made 
tip by the wants and wishes of the age, they J 
undertake, with all the subtile ingenuity of special ! 
pleaders, to prepare fictitious cases forthe political 
jury of the country — cases which have no other j 
tendency or object than the perpetuity of agitation. ] 



They call their convention, construct their plat- 
form, and designate their nominees, who are noth- 
ing more than the mere John Does in this process 
of political ejectment, designed to secure the use 
and possession of three hundred millions of public 
money. Then, all the orators and organs of 
party come forward as suitors, or as witnesses, 
to reecho the clamorous cries of their leaders, and 
the career of excitement is fairly inaugurated. 

In the mean time, all other questions, however 
important or pressing, must remain in abeyance: 
or, as the old lawyers would say, in nubibus, 
while the prosecution continues pending for the 
golden keys of patronage and power. Even to 
name any other subject as worthy of attention 
will be not only deemed rank treason against the 
sovereign majesty of party, but also unpurged 
contempt against the high court of caucus. The 
spectacle is painful as well as revolting in the 
extreme; to behold every principle of improve- 
ment — every plan of progress, trampled wildly 
and wickedly in the dust, until it shall receive 
the label and indorsement of some authoritative 
convention; to see statesmen of eminent talents, 
both in and out of Congress, employing all their 
splendid faculties in the barbarous enterprise of 
crushing to the earth every new movement not 
originated by themselves; to see all our political 
journalists dipping their pens in gall and poison 
to blacken the fame and blight the influence of 
every dissenter from the faith of faction, whose 
cup of communion is the conspiracy of the cau- 
cus; to know that the administrator of a great 
Government — a successor of the three immortals, 
Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson — habitually 
brings to bear the full weight of three hundred 
millions of gold, to overwhelm and bury, as be- 
neath a metallic mountain, every high and holy 
aspiration of the popular heart intensely yearn- 
ing for the ideal of social perfection, the very 
instant when it,assumes an organized shape, or 
becomes capable of political recognition. The 
sight is still more sorrowful, unspeakably more 
humiliating, to witness a President of the Union — 
a chief, not of sections, but of the nation — with 
his army of officials, and even the ministers of 
his Cabinet, entering warmly into the canvass 
of a local election, and levying the most odious 
species of black mail, in the form of contributions 
from all his subordinates, to exterminate the free- 
dom of opinion in a sovereign State, as the means 
of sustaining his party, and to. perpetuate hie 
power for the next succession. It is equally de- 
grading to see the first Magistrate of the greatest 
Government on the globe condescending to be- 
come a spy on the free movements of innocent 
citizens — a common informer against them in the 
courts of despotism — infringing their constitu- 
tional as well as natural rights of voluntary emi- 
gration — even the physical right of unrestrained 
locomotion — arresting their steps by mendacious 
prosecutions, on the ridiculous pretext that they 
were going to make war on Nicaragua, when it 
was notorious to all the world that they would 
go as friends, and at the special instance and re- 
quest of the only political power in Nicaragua. 

Eut all this effrontery, folly , and political crime, 
are the natural fruits of that one poisonous tree, 
the deadly Upas of the caucus and convention; 
and, therefore, do I protest against it. I protest 
against the system as a whole and in all its parts; 



against its causes and its consequents, as being 
alike death to the hopes of genius, and destruc- 
tion to the rights of every free citizen. In the 
names of the great ones now no more, whom it 
crucified while living; in behalf of the illustrious 
men who tremble before its power to-day on the 
verge of political exile; in favor of the future 
l)enefactors of the country that it will surely os- 
tracise; for the sake of all morality, liberty, and 
law; by the sacred Democratic idea of the sov- 
ereign and supreme equality of all American citi- 
zens; by the franchises of the millions usurped in 
the hands of the few; by the activities of com- 
merce, the interests of science, the claims of re- 
ligion, the demands of progress, the spirit of the 
age; by the Constitution and the national inde- 
pendence, and by all the bountiful blood and 
beautiful lives with which they were bought; and 
by the voice of the blood of our brothers crying 
from the ground of Panama and Nicaragua — I 
protest against and defy the aristocracy of the 
new line of despots — the cruel kings of the caucus 
and convention. 

But the practical question is embarrassed with 
extreme difficulties, when one would inquire as 
to the remedy for such monstrous evils. The 
obvious answer is to abandon the system alto- 
gether. This, however, the professional politi- 
cians will never consent to do of their own free 
accord, as it would be a surrender of the powers 
and dignities which they have usurped. And, 
therefore, for some indefinite period of time, the 
oppressive machinery of parties will probably 
continue to work on in the same old way, grow- 
ing ever more and more tyrannical and mischiev- 
ous, so as at last to become unendurable, when 
the aroused majesty of the people will break 
forth in their might, and shiver the whole abhor- 
red structure, as with the fall of a thunderbolt. 
If Providence, in mercy, should ever again grant 
us another truly great man, one of the giant race, 
like Thomas Jefferson or General Jackson, he 
would grind this infamous sham of loafer olig- 
archy into powder, and all the brood of political 
vipers that nestle in its bosom, with one single 
crush of his iron boot-heel. And hence the uni- 
versal cry from one end of the country to the 
other, " We want another General Jackson !" 

The scheme of conventions can urge only the 
solitary argument in justification of its assump- 
tions, that such a rigorous regime is necessary to 
give concentrated strength and unity to the oper- 
ations of parties; but, as I have previously indi- 
cated, there are really no parties now existing in 
the true sense of the term. All the principal issues 
have been for ever adjudicated in accordance with 
the original Democratic idea as expounded by 
Jefferson. "We hear not a whispered syllable' 
any more of high tariffs, free trade, or national 
banks. No such timbers can be found in recent 
platforms. The only ostensible party organiza- 
tion that can offer any sort of pretension to re- 
spectable antiquity is the self-assumed Demo- ' 
cratic party; but, as I have just said, its princi- 
ples are common to all the other factions, and,' 
therefore, cannot serve as the basis of a separate 
and distinct classification. 

I do not know any better method of illustrating 
the precise views which I entertain on this sub- I 
ject, than by a brief reference to the facts of my 
own private political history. In the primary I 



import of the word, I have been a Democrat from 
the days of my earliest youth; I am so still, and 
shall always be so. From the year of my major- 
ity I have been in all the great battles of the 
American Democracy for supremacy, and theie 
has not been a monument raised to commemorate 
its victories, at which I cannot point, and say of 
some pebble in the proud column, " that, too, was 
contributed by my hand." But I find it utterly 
impossible to act with the present administration 
of the Democratic party. I will not bow down 
in the dust and offer my conscience and my coun- 
try as sacrifices to the murderous Moloch of con- 
ventions. 

But no reflecting mind can fail to perceive the 
immense difference between the genuine Democ- 
racy, distinguished by the attributes and actions 
which I have just enumerated, and the retrograde 
faction that now pretends an exclusive title to the 
name. Day and darkness are scarcely more 
strongly contrasted. If, however, all the other 
opposing evidence were wanting, the so-called 
Democratic organization in this House would 
falsify their assumption of identity with the 
school of Jefferson and Jackson. You behold here, 
among them, some fifteen or more Whigs, five or 
mpre Free-Soilers, as many members of the Amer- 
ican order, and some twenty-five or thirty be- 
longing to the wing of Southern Rights, thus 
leaving less than a third of the whole number 
who were Democrats of the old line. And this 
fact shows conclusively the dissolution of the 
original party. 

It cannot be doubted that, if there be any po- 
litical organization at all among the masses, it is 
thoroughly Democratic; but I must pronounce it 
an absurdity to suppose that the Democratic rank 
and file of the great army of progress are offi- 
cered and commanded by their ancient enemies 
— by Whigs, Free-Soilers, Abolitionists, Nulli- 
fiers, Know Nothings, and Secessionists. In- 
deed, the coalition of all these hostile and heter- 
ogeneous elements, under the popular euphonious 
appellation of Democracy, cannot present a prin- 
ciple, not even a single political dogma, in common; 
but all the time the appeal has been: " Stand by 
the South — stand as one man, and show an undi- 
vided front in opposition to the dark banner of 
Black Republicanism." Such was the sole tie 
of brotherhood that bound together " the im- 
xiortal seventy-four." No, sir, not a solitary 
principle of -political doctrine has been announced 
by them, nor will there be until after the first 
Monday in Jurte, when the Cincinnati conven- 
tion will furnish a platform. Until then, they 
dare not, as a party, present a single issue, or 
affirm one political proposition 

Recurring now to the Republican school, they 
too appeal to party organization, to act as a unit: 
not for the purpose of carrying out some great 
measure of national politics; not to advance the 
interests, and promote the general welfare of our 
common country — no, sir; their cry also is sec- 
tional: "Stand by your arms — stand firm and 
united to wage a relentless war upon the slave 
power of the South." Such is the purely sec- 
tional strife fast consuming the vital energies of 
this youthful Republic; and under these circum- 
stances I deem it my duty to enter my solemn 
protest against those political organizations which 
spring from party conventions. 



6 



It is to be noticed as a remarkable phenomenon 
in the Republican platform, that it presents but 
a single plank, and that is altogether theoretical 
— the isolated idea of opposition to slavery. Nor 
can they resist the force of this fatal objection by 
raising the wild shout of " Freedom for Kansas, 
because that question is already virtually settled, 
since the statesmen of all sects are now agreed to 
let the sovereign citizens of the Territories choose 
their own institutions. 

But the most startling feature in the Republican 
movement is its manifest tendency towards a dis- 
solution of the Union. I do not no\y allude to 
any sudden and violent disruption, a catastrophe 
which shall mark the lines of the different States 
with blood, by plunging the country into the hor- 
rors of civil war, although such an event is no 
distant or imaginary probability. I refer to a 
natural and inevitable danger — to the pernicious 
fruits which all this agitation must necessarily 
bear in the next generation. The whole series 
of facts in the present age, according to an eter- 
nal law of social dynamics, will cooperate as 
causes to produce the phenomena of the age that 
shall immediately succeed us. Now, sir, it re- 
quires no spirit of prophecy to predict what must 
be the consequences of all this sectional discord 
and bitter hostility on the opinions and passions 
of our children. The press, the platform, and 
even the pulpit, are all busily engaged in brewing 
the storm which will, one day, roll its thunders 
over every mountain and valley in the land, and 
shatter the fair fabric of our free institutions into 
atoms, unless some scheme can be devised to re- 
move these active and powerful causes of decay 
and disintegration. For it is a fundamental ax- 
iom of political statics, that no society can hold 
together as a durable unity without a vital and 
vigorous spirit of nationality. There must be a 
feeling of common interest among all those who 
live under the same government. No consider- 
able part of the community must regard them- 
selves as foreigners or enemies with respect to 
another part. But the slavery agitation ignores 
these high scientific and social laws, as if it were 
in reality the express and deliberate object of 
parties to destroy the Constitution. 

The excitement operates also in another equally 
fatal mannerto effect the same unworthy end, and 
cotemporancously produces the greatest present 
evils; for amidst the fury of this sectional war, 
no important measure of a national character can 
obtain even a respectful hearing. As the roar of 
the tempest becomes louder, and the darkness 
thickens over the land, every noble principle, 
every time-hallowed institution, every generous 
aspiration of the human heart — Americanism, con- 
servatism, Democracy — nay, the principles and 
practice of our most holy religion, must all bow 
heir faces in the dust, until the deadly sirocco 
hall have passed by. 

At this very moment there are questions of the 
deepest interest wholly overshadowed by the 
black cloud of the slavery discussion. Time, the 
mighty innovator, has placed the nation in a new 
sphere of circumstances imperiously demanding 
the policy of new measures. Under the influence 
of the great democratic idea expressed by the 
word progress, territories ample enough for em- 
pires have been added to the original patrimony 
of the Union. A bright star of virgin gold Hit- 



ters on the western border of our banner, as it 
waves over the waters of the Pacific ocean, from 
the Titan's flag-staff of the Rocky Mountain^. 
But we need arches of iron, traversed by steam, 
and swept by electricitj r , to span the gulf of dis- 
tance between the central Government and these 
remote possessions. We have advanced to the 
dignity of a first-class power among the sovereigns 
of the earth, and our commercial relations are 
wide extended as the world. By the revolution 
in the navigation of the ocean caused by the intro- 
duction of steam, we have bc<*i brought into im- 
mediate contact with the other hemisphere. The 
living, active Governments of this and of the Old 
World stand face to face with each other, and also 
with the worn out, dilapidated Powers, not only 
of both continents, but of the beautiful islands of 
Oceanica; and these, too; are to be regenerated 
by either one or the other — by the Anglo-Ameri- 
can race, with all the vigor and vitality of free 
institutions; or by the different despotisms of 
Europe, eager to ingraft upon them the corrupt 
and tyrannical theories of the Old World. And 
hence may be inferred the urgent desideratum of 
an enlarged and comprehensive foreign policy, 
suited to such a state of circumstances; and this 
is precisely what the popular mind so vehemently 
demands, but which, in the mad rage of factions, 
is utterly denied us. 

This treacherous folly and imbecility have 
been forcibly illustrated in a recent instance. The 
people of Nicaragua, in the exercise of their un- 
doubted rights as a sovereign community, saw fit 
to change their form of government, and on the 
13th of October of the last year they overthrew the 
serviles of the Chamorro faction, established a 
Republic, and appointed Patricio Rivas, a native- 
born citizen, as their President, and William 
Walker, a naturalized citizen, as commander-in- 
chief of their armies. Since that time there has 
been no revolution, nor attempt at revolution, 
neither insurrection nor rebellion, by the people 
of Nicaragua. Nor is the Government held by 
military rule. The President and his Cabinet are 
all natives. Granada, a city of four thousand in- 
habitants, is the headquarters of the army, while 
the executive and civil officers perform their func- 
tions at Leon, a city of nearly forty thousand peo- 
ple, distant a hundred miles from Granada, and 
entirely free from the presence of any American 
soldiers for the last three months. Indeed, no 
American troops are to beseen in any of the large 
towns, with the exception of Granada. The offi- 
cers and soldiers in all the other cities are pure 
natives. The whole population of Nicaragua 
amounts to two hundred and seventy-five thou- 
sand ; and it may be well doubted whether there be 
another people in the civilized world so unani- 
mously agreed in the cordial support of their Gov- 
ernment. There is absolutely no sectional strife 
or party discord among them. There is perhaps 
no military chief on the surface of the globe that 
possesses in a higher degree the confidence of his 
soldiers, and the citizens of his country, than 
William Walker. This new Republic of Nicar- 
agua is located at the exact point where we most 
require an enlightened and liberal Government 
and friendly ally. It stands directly on the great 
highway to our Pacific possessions, where our 
sovereign citizens are passing daily. 

Now, the people demand, and very properly 



too, to know why the only political power in 
Nicaragua has not been recognized by the Fed- 
eral Executive? A strange combination seems 
to have been formed against this new Republic. 
Malignant fueling and sinister opposition have 
been aroused, and kept alive, as if for the express 
purpose of giving time for British and French 
interference, to aid Costa Rica by arms and men 
in her crusade against Nicaragua; and, allow me 
to ask, for what end? There is no declaration 
of war — no pretended cause of quarrel against 
Nicaragua as a Republic; but it is a declaration 
of ruthless hostility against American citizens in 
the Nicaraguan service. This, sir, is the unde- 
niable fact. And yet the infamous transaction 
is virtually countenanced and approved by the 
American Government; thus tacitly admitting 
the pretension, that our own people have no right 
to engage in the service of a foreign power. It 
is a war upon American citizens, merely because 
they are Americans, and by British soldiers car- 
rying British muskets. 

But, again, sir, look at the humiliation to 
which we are subjected by having our transit 
interrupted — our free passage from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific States of the Union ! How mortify- 
ing is the fact to us as a nation, and how destruc- 
tive of the rights and interests of our citizens ! 
The Pacific gate to our western dominions is 
already closed against us by the Costa Ricans, 
who, in their thirst for American blood, have 
taken possession of San Juan del Sur; while 
San Juan del Norte, on the Atlantic side, is 
guarded by the batteries of British war ships, 
which subject all Americans desiring to enter 
that port to impertinent and arbitrary police reg- 
ulations. 

Mr. CADWALADER. I would inquire of 
the gentleman if he has authentic information to 
that effect ? and, if so, of what character is it? 

Mr. EVANS. I am in possession of authen- 
tic facts that the steamer Orizaba, in the act of 
transferring her passengers to the steamer of the 
Transit Company, was last month stopped by 
n. British officer, and the passengers were not 
permitted to laud until that officer was satisfied 
that they were not going to join General Walker. 
That information is now laid, as I understand, 
before the President of the United States. 

Mr. CADWALADER. In authentic form? 

Mr. EVANS. Yes, in authentic form, by 
Captain Tinklepaugh, of the steamer. 

Mr. CADWALADER. I do not wish the 
gentleman to understand that I denied the cor- 
rectness of his general statement. I wished to 
obtain as particular information as possible of the 
grounds on which he rested his belief of the fact 
which he has stated. 

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Chairman, no man can 
doubt but that all the bloodshed and riot in Central 
America is justly attributable to the failure or re- 
fusal of our present Administration to recognize 
the Rivas government in Nicaragua — a failure or 
refusal which should bring upon those having 
charge of the foreign bureau the disapprobation 
and censure of the American people. They now 
stand condemned by the judgment of the masses; 
and as under other Governments a Ministry that 
would thus abuse its power'and prove recreant to 
the public trusts committed to its hands, would 
be degraded and dismissed, so should those under 



the existing American Administration, who have 
been guilty of such unnatural malfeasance in of- 
fice, suffer a like penalty. The public voice de- 
mands it, sir. The people demand the retirement 
of Mr. Secretary Marcy,and the immediate rec- 
ognition of the present Government of Nicaragua, 
Not only this, sir, but the American Congress 
has a high duty to perform. The representatives 
of the people in their legislative capacity should 
not only repeal, and abolish forever, the odious 
neutrality laws, but Congress should also reaf- 
firm the Monroe doctrine, defining its meaning in 
terms too plain to be misunderstood even by 
British diplomatists. Let us do this, sir, and, my 
word for it, it will open up a bright era for con- 
stitutional liberty. This subject, however, Mr. 
Chairman, I propose, with many others, to dis- 
cuss at an early day, and shall pursue it no further 
for the present. 

Again, we are failing to take measures to per- 
fect the communication with our Pacific posses- 
sions — to put our entire coast defense upon a war 
footing — to keep open our Isthmus transit, and 
the gates of the Caribbean sea and Gulf of Mex- 
ico. 

We are failing to bring our Army and Navy 
up to the exigencies of the times, in .view of the 
great struggle that is now approaching between 
the free institutions of our country and the des- 
potisms of Europe for the protectorate of the 
decaying Governments of this continent and 
the isles of Oceanica; for the time is coming, and 
now is, when they must receive the blessings of 
our civilization and religion, or pass from us for- 
ever to the galling tyrannies of the Old "World. 

But still the factious parties of the caucus and 
convention ignore all these demands, and spend 
their time and splendid talents only in discus- 
sions of the slavery theme. 

Sir, it is impossible to enumerate all the great 
wants of this enlightened nation. There has never 
been an age or people in the annals of time, that 
developed such lightning-like activities, and dis- 
played such intense yearnings after social and 
pohticalperfection, as those which we now wit- 
ness. The grand and glorious democratic idea 
has arrived at the stage of a full popular recogni- 
tion and appreciation. The dignity, the royal 
estate, and princely privileges of every man, 
woman, and child belonging to the American fam- 
ily are universally acknowledged. And now the 
materials of our progress are such as the sun of 
sixty centuries never saw before. With the best 
form of Government which the experience of 
all past time has been able to produce; with a 
power mighty as magic over the physical ele- 
ments and subtile agencies of the natural world, 
which former years never so much as dreamed 
of; with the finest race in material development 
and mental vigor, with the brilliant blessings of 
education diffused universally, like sunlight ir, 
the air; with the most intellectual and highly 
cultivated women, the mothers — shall I not cs . 
them? — of the future; with a continent of v - 
plowed lands; with lakes like oceans, and riy s 
large as seas, and with soaring aspirations fq' ill 
that is beautiful or useful in art, profourv in 
science and divine in religion — I say with all 
these the nation is prepared to start on a loftier 
career of improvement. 

But to do this, the people must cashier their 



8 



party leaders, and drive away into utter darkness 
all the demons of disunion and sectional strife — 
those that, like the unclean spirit of old, would 
enter into the heart of the Constitution only to 
throw it upon the ground and tear it in pieces. 
Every sovereign citizen must learn to assert his 
right, make his royal will obeyed, and become a 
potential legislator. Then every door of destiny 
will open at the popular bidding, and the race of 
progress will commence over all the fair fields of 
the future. 

Standing on the strength of these great facts, 
it would be no difficult task to forecast the coming 
grandeur of American civilization. I should say, 
that with the wealth, learning, science, art, and 
experience of all the world, we would soon be the 
most refined and polished race that history has 
witnessed since the fall of man. But unless the 
religious sentiment be correspondingly developed 
and strengthened, so as to continue the cultiva- 
tion and practice of all the Christian virtues, 
a spirit of luxurious enjoyment and more than 
eastern voluptuousness would gradually prevail, 
so as in the course of a few generations to enervate 
our posterity, and enfeeble their powers of voli- 
tion until they would lose their control over phys- 
ical causes, -while the decline of their speculative 
faculties and moral emotions would render them, 
like the effeminate Asiatics, the fit subjects of 
either division or despotism — the prey of civil 
strife, or the victims for some Tamerlane of a 
future age. For universal experience proves, 
that without a religion, and a common religion, 
both for rulers anil subjects — a religion founded 
on the love and fear of God, no nation can long 
flourish, or fulfill any exalted destiny. 

The Bible, therefore, must travel the circuit of 
our civilization, keeping pace with the march of 
progress, as a guide and illumination in every 
path, in days of darkness, and in nights of storm. 
The sweet chimes of the church bell and the 
earnest tones of prayer must mingle with the 
piercing shrieks of the steam-whistle and the roar 
of iron-wheels. And it is precisely because the 




8 



.>e- 

L Of 



religious se.. 0j"" 
is as active and ei.. "*4 8o-> 
of hope. I believe litei t . **r 7'Oe> 
Church is the salt of the eartn, ^O 
lieve — I never will credit the mournlu 
measureless despair, that the millions of pei.wions 
from the lips and hearts of the pure and pious, 
from all the public and private altars in the land, 
ascending up to Heaven, morning and evening, 
and on every Sabbath, like holy incense, the pre- 
cious perfumes of the soul, for the indestructi- 
bility of our glorious Union, will all prove un- 
availing. 

But all such lofty considerations — everything 
is overlooked of late by the leaders of faction, 
save the issues forged by the machinery of con- 
ventions. You hear nothing but the wild battle- 
cries of slavery, slavery — all is slavery. In the 
mean time, the Pacific railroad, our foreign rela- 
tions, and the shameless inefficiency of our Army 
and Navy, in the view of a great war against the 
most powerful nation on the globe, which must 
come sooner or later, are all forgotten. Better it 
were ten thousand times that an earthquake 
should rock the world like a cradle, and swallow 
up Kansas into the central fires concealed by the 
crust of the globe; better that the destroying 
angel of pestilence with fiery sword should sweep 
all the blacks from the fields of the South — nay, 
better, that the African race should become ex- 
tinct at once, as it probably will be in the course 
of time — than to see the wreck of our civil and 
religious liberty, which all this strife and agita- 
tion arc so terribly adapted to produce. 

The last luminary of constitutional freedom, 
the last of all the ages, the last of all the lands, 
the solitary star in the mortal night of time, to 
which the oppressed nations of the earth may 
look for light and hope, the only ray of trae 
Democracy trembles in the western sky. Oh ! 
in the name of humanity, law, liberty, and re- 
ligion, quench not that divine beam to leave 
the world in the darkness of despotism forever- 
more ! 



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